By; Bala B. Bitrus, Minna.
President Muhammadu Buhari has directed all specialized federal government owned tertiary institutions including Universities, Polytechnics and Colleges of Education across the country to revert back to their original mandates and focus or risk forfeiting subventions from the federal government.
He said as from the 2018/2019 academic session, all specialized federal Universities, Polytechnics, Mono Technics and the likes which were established to produce specialists in various spheres of human endeavors but have regrettably, over time, deviated from their main stream areas of specialisation, must return to their original statuses.
The President noted with dismay the systemic dislocations and lost of focus by some of the nation’s specialized universities who have abandoned their core targets and main streams by deviating to other fields from their mandates.
He directed that all federal universities of technology should immediately return to their former, (original) mandates. He declared that as from the 2018 /2019 academic session, those who failed to comply would no longer receive federal government’s funding and subvention.
The President stated this in his message at the 26th convocation ceremony and 34th Founders Day of the Federal University of Technology, Minna.
He announced the reconstitution of the Governing Boards of all federal government owned tertiary institutions including Universities, Polytechnics and Colleges of Education across the country.
Similarly, all the Boards and parastatals under the federal Ministry of Education have also been reconstituted by the federal government.
President Buhari’s message was delivered by the Executive Secretary, National University’s Commission, (NUC) Professor Abubakar Adamu who informed that the reconstitution of the Boards and parastatals was aimed at giving the necessary impetus for the envisaged change and development that would further reposition the agencies for optimal service delivery and efficiency.
In the message, the President explained that details of the appointments would be made public by the Minister of Education, Alhaji Adamu Adamu in due course.
“The Minister will release details of the reconstituted boards as well as the names of those appointed into the boards at the appropriate time” he said.
The President reiterated that in order to demonstrate his administration’s determination to ensure the right thing was done, “the National University’s Commission, the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board have been directed to monitor and ensure full compliance with the new directives” by the affected institutions.
The President said the new order on all specialized federal universities was to ensure that such specialized institutions concentrate on the production of the requisite manpower for the country’s development needs.
Buhari expressed regrets that most conventional universities and specialized ones have failed to live within specified dictates of their establishment saying the major culprits are the science and technology based ones.
He stressed that science and technology education were critical catalysts for national development adding that government would continue to give the sector the maximum support to actualise the goal of launching the country into the arrays of technologically advanced nations”.Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology Minna, Professor Musbau Akanji had earlier in an address, expressed concern that the establishment of Universities of technology by the federal government had not attained their objective largely as a result of poor funding by the government.The VC also argued that it was not proper for the federal government to give the same quantum of funds to institutions for the training of students of humanities with those training students for specialized fields as science and technology.
“The government did not realize that you cannot use the same quantum of funds to train graduates of Engineering and those of Humanities” he argued.
A total of 3, 734 students from different departments and disciplines graduated at the convocation. 2,788 received First Degrees, 637 Masters Degree, 35 Doctorate Degrees and the remaining 274 got Post Graduate Diplomas. 34 other students came out with First Class.
